I’ve heard that so many times. ‘I know SCIENTISTS who don’t believe in evolution, so I win! La La La La…’ come on. You know damn well that for every scientist who doesn’t accept evolution, there’s one thousand who do. All that tells me is that there are crackpot scientists out there. Wow, crazy scientists, stop the presses.

‘Also, a claim that life was not caused by an intelligent designer seems no more provable that the converse’…oh man, I’ve been over this in the last forum. Of course you can’t disprove ID, because it’s not falsifiable. For a theory to stand up to proper scientific testing, it must be falsifiable, that is, there must be a test that could prove it false if it weren’t true.

Evolution is the only theory regarding the origins of life that is falsifiable. There have been countless tests, any one of which could prove evolution false. The results, time and time again, verify evolutionary theory. It is the only theory that stands up to rigorous scientific testing (ands stands up astoundingly well), and is therefore the only theory that can be considered scientific.

Macro-evol…I’ve done this before too! Man, I’m caught in a web.

If you accept micro-evolution you must accept macro-evolution, because they are the same process and no one has ever provided a decent reason why change should stop at the boundary of the species. The boundary doesn’t exist, it’s just a concept.

Something I’ve noticed – it seems the evolution proponents here are forced to spend all their time defending evolution, and never getting a chance to attack creationism or ID. It’s a lot easier to poke holes than it is to defend. I might think of some questions to ask creationists…such as…well, how do you explain….uh…EVERYTHING?

Pericles & spendocrat - you go guys!

ID is such a dead end - imagine if Louis Pasteur looked at his petri dish and thought what a mystery lies here, must be god and that was that.

We owe so much of our lifestyle to science and as science continues to discover more, so will our lives change and evolve. Science has never claimed to have all the answers - in fact that is the whole point. The more we learn the more there is to learn.

Whereas religion claims to have all the answers and this is why it is such a dead-end - anything or anyone who claims to know the truth should be viewed with the utmost suspicion.

BTW watched Compass the other night - all about Isaac Newton - bit of a religious nutter it seems - predicts the apocalypse in 2060. Should still be here to see if it is true. Sort of shows just what religion can do to scientific research.

Bravo, XENA, once again!

< Pericles,
I guess I've found a great place to waste some valuable time in my few free evenings. So, is it only believers that find in Scripture what they want to hear? What about non-believers? And how could you substantiate the claim that only "scripture folk" find there what they desire to find? (for there are plenty of things to terrify the believer as well as console her) If one finds in Scripture only what one wants then you yourself find what you want: reasons to disbelieve it. ...

Charles
Posted by alyosha, Monday, 12 September 2005 1:36:41 PM >

Nothing to add.

It is time for students of the evolutionary process, especially those who have been misquoted and used by the creationists, to state clearly that evolution is a fact, not theory, and that what is at issue within biology are questions of details of the process and the relative importance of different mechanisms of evolution. It is a fact that the earth with liquid water, is more than 3.6 billion years old. It is a fact that cellular life has been around for at least half of that period and that organized multicellular life is at least 800 million years old. It is a fact that major life forms now on earth were not at all represented in the past. There were no birds or mammals 250 million years ago. It is a fact that major life forms of the past are no longer living. There used to be dinosaurs and Pithecanthropus, and there are none now. It is a fact that all living forms come from previous living forms. Therefore, all present forms of life arose from ancestral forms that were different. Birds arose from nonbirds and humans from nonhumans. No person who pretends to any understanding of the natural world can deny these facts any more than she or he can deny that the earth is round, rotates on its axis, and revolves around the sun.

- R. C. Lewontin "Evolution/Creation Debate: A Time for Truth" Bioscience 31, 559 (1981) reprinted in Evolution versus Creationism, op cit.

So enormous, ramifying, and consistent has the evidence for evolution become that if anyone could now disprove it, I should have my conception of the orderliness of the universe so shaken as to lead me to doubt even my own existence. If you like, then, I will grant you that in an absolute sense evolution is not a fact, or rather, that it is no more a fact than that you are hearing or reading these words.

- H. J. Muller, "One Hundred Years Without Darwin Are Enough" School Science and Mathematics 59, 304-305. (1959) reprinted in Evolution versus Creationism op cit.

I'm getting kind of over this, but:

"evolution is a fact, not theory, and that what is at issue within biology are questions of details of the process and the relative importance of different mechanisms of evolution. It is a fact that the earth with liquid water, is more than 3.6 billion years old. It is a fact that cellular life has been around for at least half of that period and that organized multicellular life is at least 800 million years old. It is a fact that... there were no birds or mammals 250 million years ago... It is a fact that... all present forms of life arose from ancestral forms that were different. Birds arose from nonbirds and humans from nonhumans. No person who pretends to any understanding of the natural world can deny these facts any more than she or he can deny that the earth is round, rotates on its axis, and revolves around the sun."

"The earth is round, rotates on its axis, and revolves around the sun": these things are observable, the rest of the above merely fits into theories which are possible within the observable.

To put all of the above into the same category is just plain wrong.

David Boaz - (1) name-dropping - point taken! I do need to be taken down a bit sometimes, but am currently recovering from several years of serious illness and total loss of self-esteem, there's probably a bit of self-boosterism in there (but it's true, I have met a lot of well-known people)

(2) Bertrand Russell - yes, I agree, it's why I went to see him, and I had his History of Western Philosophy in my ruc-sack when I first went to India. But rather than, as I had thought possible, finding wisdom/knowledge which I could synthesise with my existing Western wis/know, I found something else, and felt sorry for BR that he had not also come across it I'm sure he would have achieved even more

(3) Re overcoming 'dukkha' - I disagree with you. I think that dukkha (broadly, for those who don't know this Pali word, suffering, the unsatisfactory nature of conditioned existence) arises from craving and aversion arising from ignorance. My belief isn't at an intellectual level, but from my practice. I think that in referring to repentance and forgiveness, you are talking about the surface, so-called "conscious" level of the mind. But this is a very small part of the whole, it is in the so-called sub-conscious (which is in fact always alert) that our problems arise and must be dealt with, in which craving and aversion can be reduced and eventually eliminated, so that we do not commit unwholesome actions (sin) and we do need forgiveness in that we will no longer judge or condemn. I follow the practice taught by the Buddha (no, I haven't met him!) and more recently S N Goenka, and have found it over the last 30-odd years to be very helpful, both for myself and for many people of many faiths or no faith.

And, bushbred, no, I don't believe in divine faith or a divine plan as you surmised, my faith is based on empirical testing, on a solid basis.